Time to hit the polls! Our 2017 Head of the Class season kicks off

School spirit has always been a huge part of the Head of the Class. Steve Bosch / PNG

It’s time to officially launch what we like to call Head of the Class season.

For the eighth-straight year, we are once again asking readers of The Province to take an active role in determining two very special parts of our 24-page special section which will be published June 19.

HOC’s Readers Choice Awards will once again salute our Coach of the Year, and in addition, we’ve created a new category, the School Spirit Award, one which celebrates the ways in which athletics enhance the general well-being within B.C.’s many high schools.

Today, from all of our submissions, we’ve chosen four finalists in each category. Read about each of them right here, and then cast your votes at theprovince.com/hoc.

The balloting is open until May 25 (1 p.m.) and you can cast your vote once a day (per email address).

Just by voting, readers will have a chance to win a $400 gift-card prize-pack which includes a $300 VISA gift card and a $100 Subway gift card.

Our Coach of the Year winner will receive $500, while our School Spirit winner will receive $1,000, with both prizes going directly to each school’s athletic department.

So get in the spirit. Organize voting campaigns. And use #provhoc to help spread the word.

Here’s a look at each of our finalists.

COACH OF THE YEAR

CAROL HOFER (Langley Christian)

SPORT: Volleyball

Over a 29-year career coaching the game at the high school, provincial and university level, Hofer has touched the lives of countless athletes.

She’s also coached both female and male athletes over that span. For the past two seasons at Langley Christian, she has coached the school’s junior varsity (2015) and senior varsity (2016) boys teams to a combined 101-3 record. Both of those seasons ended with B.C. titles, including 2015’s perfect 52-0 campaign.

“I really believe that if you aren’t learning something each time you coach, you’re doing a disservice to your team,” says Hofer. “And I believe that sport is just the vehicle which allows you to help young men and women learn about life.”

FRANK GIALLONARDO (Burnaby South)

SPORT: Soccer

He coached the Rebels’ senior boys soccer team this season, but ask anyone at Burnaby South about the impact that Giallonardo has had over the years, and it doesn’t stop there.

“He’s become, to all of us, more than just a coach,” says Burnaby South athletic director Robbie Puni. “He has been Mr. Do-It-All for our (athletics) program.”

The long laundry list includes serving for the past decade as Burnaby-New Westminster high school soccer’s league coordinator, sponsoring various teams to insure the kids can play, and then extending that theme of giving into his own classroom.

Says Giallonardo when asked why he coaches: “I always tell people that when I was young, someone did it for me. I don’t feel obligated, but someone gave their time to me, so I would like to repay it. It’s as simple as that.”

BALRAJ DHILLON (Byrne Creek, Burnaby)

SPORT: Basketball

In his dual role as both his school’s community outreach co-ordinator and the head coach of its senior boys basketball team, Dhillon brings an holistic approach to his daily work at Byrne Creek, a school located in an Edmonds neighbourhood which has been called one of the most ethnically diverse of its kind in North America.

Only he doesn’t see it as work.

“When you love what you do, it’s not work,” says Dhillon, who this season led his Bulldogs to the school’s first-ever Lower Mainland triple-A title and fourth place at the B.C. championships.

“I tell my guys all the time that when I get to practice it’s the best time of my day.”

RORY ALLEN (D.W. Poppy, Langley)

SPORT: Basketball

When his team needed a bus driver in order to get to their games on time, Allen didn’t hesitate to go out and get his Class 4 license.

And while being the head of his school’s science department comes with its own set of additional responsibilities, he has, for the last quarter-century-plus, coached girls basketball teams at the Langley school.

“When it comes to the basketball kids, I still get texts and I get invited to their weddings.”

Without saying why he coaches, that’s why he coaches.

“It sort of becomes this lifelong gig,” Allen adds. “I can’t imagine not doing it. It would be weird to come in here and not coach. I might be at home at a reasonable time, but to not be in the gym, I would feel a real sense of detachment from my school community.”

SCHOOL SPIRIT AWARD

BRITANNIA SECONDARY BRUINS

Vancouver’s oldest remaining high school saw just how much spirit resided within its community of past graduates and current students, especially its student-athletes, when the current school year opened with the news that it had been placed on a list of city schools being considered for potential closure.

Fortunately for all those associated with the East Vancouver institution, one which has stood since 1908, that closure was averted.

Noted as the province’s oldest community school, Britannia is located right next to the Britannia Community Centre, and thus a great synergy has developed in terms of teaching, coaching and volunteering for the school’s many student-athletes.

The school’s varsity teams, especially its boys and girls basketball teams, live up to the BRIT mantra, which stands for Bravery, Responsibility, Integrity, Tenacity.

G.W. GRAHAM SECONDARY GRIZZLIES (Chilliwack)

Celebrating its 10th anniversary as a school this season, few institutions have so quickly established the importance of student-athletics over as short a period of time as the Grizzlies.

Consider that last season, close to 500 students donned the blue-and-white of the Grizz to compete on one of the school’s 29 teams. That number represents almost half of the school’s total enrolment.

And as a testament to the breadth of its scope, the school has not only started a football team, it has produced a one which is an annual provincial-title contender and the centre of student-athlete engagement over the fall months at its Friday Night Lights games.

The best part of all for the Grizzlies?

The call to volunteer is also huge at G.W. Graham. A total of 18 teachers are involved in coaching, supplemented by a large number of community-based coaches.

TERRY FOX SECONDARY RAVENS (PoCo)

Inspired daily by its namesake, Canadian icon Terry Fox, the Ravens’ nation is amongst the most fervent student bodies in the province when it comes to lending support to their athletic teams and the general culture of the school.

A statue of Fox stands at ground-level in front of the school, epitomizing the down-to-earth nature of school’s former varsity basketball player who would later embark on his Marathon of Hope across Canada.

All of it starts in September when Fox students can be seen lining the street’s of Terry’s hometown as volunteers for its annual Terry Fox Home Town Run.

The Ravens football team, which won the B.C. Subway Bowl triple-A title in December, and its senior boys basketball team which annually hosts the wildly-popular Legal Beagle Invitational, are two of the central rallying points for the student body.

Yet the value of a vibrant athletics program at Fox is further magnified by an army of coaches, 60 in total, with 35 of them actual staff members.

BURNABY SOUTH SECONDARY REBELS

They are a school with long and storied tradition of athletic excellence.

Yet Burnaby South is the school which has best embraced social media as a means of supporting and publicizing the accomplishments of each and every one of its teams from Grade 8 through 12.

In fact, if you log on to Twitter under the hash tag #GoRebels, you’ll see just how much pride exists for all teams donning the school’s stylized, black-and-yellow R.

The social media effort is a grassroots initiative fuelled by the school’s student athletic council, known as the Rebels Athletic Crew or RAC.

Six different digital platforms are utilized, along with a website that provides updates on not only every Rebels’ team, but the school’s intramural activities and any other prominent school-wide initiatives. It’s their way of bringing 1,860 students closer together.

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